Instant messaging on mobile is now big business. According to data gathered by Skilled.co for their new infographic on the ‘5 biggest Messenger Apps,’ by 2018 roughly 80% of the world’s smartphone users will be active on such apps, which equates to about 2 billion people!

Let’s take a closer look at what makes them so popular:

WhatsApp

WhatsApp rivals Facebook in terms of active monthly users and has several unique features, such as a 256 user capacity for group chat – the largest of any messaging app. Conversely, however, it doesn’t support conference calls.

Facebook Messenger

Although not available outside the United States, Facebook’s ability to allow users to send each other debit card payments is a highly useful addition that isn’t seen in many of the other messaging apps. These transactions are free and can be secured with a pin and fingerprint sensor. They even have a 24-hour fraud team in case your account is breached in any way.

Viber

Developed in Israel and Belarus, Viber has unique location features, integrates into the Chrome web browser, and has advanced and customizable privacy and notification settings. It also has a high group chat limit of 200.

Line

Line (which was developed in Japan to allow easy contact when telecommunications are taken out by natural disasters) is fine tuned to use the least amount of data of any messaging app. It also has a pay contacts feature similar to Facebook. Where it stands out is with a 200 user limit on conferencing – impressive when many apps don’t even support conferencing.

WeChat

At this stage, China’s WeChat probably shouldn’t even be called a messaging app, because it has so many advanced features. Its payment feature, for example, isn’t just for paying contacts, you can pay household bills and even book and pay for transportation and medical appointments!

You can also go into any store and scan common products on the shelves to compare prices across offline and online stores.
To learn more about the top 5 messaging apps, including their features and user statistics – check out the full new infographic from Skilled.co today!